You Were A Kindness
by Heart Torn Out
Summary: Fem!Holmes and Fem!Watson. Actually... I'm pretty sure everyone is gender!swapped in this. So. It's Post-Reichenbach. And Joan Watson is pretty sure she just saw her love. Her dead love. Established Johnlock Joanlock? and barely a *hint* of Mystrade!


**So. I wrote this as a short story for our school paper. It was originally a sherlock/john fem!bbcSherlock thing, but i changed the names fo the paper since I don't own them! In this version, I've changed the names back to the BBC!Verse Sherlock people. **

**So. Post-Reichenbach, Joan (John) freaking out a bit. First person. It was a prompt so it started first person so I decided to finish it in first person. Ok? Ok.**

**Current song: You Were A Kindness by The National (i adore the National)**

**Current Thought: Gonna take a nap after this, actually. And make some tea.**

**ENJOY AND I DO NOT OWN THEM!**

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><p><strong>You Were A Kindness<strong>

**I thought I saw **_**her**_.

But that would mean that I'm crazy, and I've been talking to my therapist again ever since _she_ died and really. I'm not crazy. It's just grief. We'd been so close, so intimate. And then she had just…Well, she had – she'd left me essentially, in the way that everyone eventually leaves. She'd gone and died. I know. You're probably saying that people can't help it. People die. That's what people _do_.

But she died on purpose, if you get my drift.

And this time I _swear_ I saw her, turning a corner on Trafalgar Square, her dark, curly hair whipping against the wind, raven ringlets falling into those icy blue-grey eyes. Her cheeks bones high and in sharp relief against the setting London sun. She was in different clothes, though, if it was her. Instead of her usual blouse and skirt combo, she had been in a hooded jumper and denims, head ducked. Trying to avoid looking at _me_. And then she was gone.

I followed, of course I did, but there was no one there when I finally reached the street again. It doesn't make sense, I know it doesn't. I had seen her die, seen the blood on the pavement like a halo around her head, felt the lack of a pulse in her wrist before they'd pulled me away. A doctor, I told them, I was a doctor, I could help her. But no. No. She was too far gone, back then.

I don't know why I thought I could have done anything. I still don't.

I headed over to a private club on the posh side of London in a blind rage. If there was one person who could explain to me what just happened, it was _her_ older sister. The sister who hadn't spoken to me since the funeral, who didn't even attend the funeral at that, just drove by in her big, black car and gave me her condolences. Like I was the one who's sister had died. But I had lost _more_ than a friend. Mycroft new that. It didn't stop me from hating her for not being as wrecked as I was when it happened.

She was getting out of the club at the same moment I walked up to the entrance. She gave me a surprised nod and smiled blandly. She only ever smiled blandly. There was nothing new there. And I had to ask. Had to know if her death had just been one big hoax to deal with the impending threat on London and whatever she had had to do with it. Mycroft worked for the government you see; practically _was_ the government. If anyone could pull something like that off, it was her. And here I go sounding crazy again. Like a proper nutter. My dead lover's sister helping her fake her death. Preposterous.

"Did you help her?" I asked straight out. I keep thinking that if she says yes, the entire world will fall down around me. I had spent months in the flat we had shared, alone amongst her left over, forgotten things. Experiments left halfway done, bullet holes in the wall from the days she got bored and used my army issued gun to take a crack shot. I had sat on our bed, in the room we had shared, stared at her closet full of clothes, the purple silk shirts, the ankle-length skirts. Her scarves and coats. Her gloves. Things I had to eventually get rid of. The pillows still smelled of her, the sheets did too. I had been swamped by her ever-lasting presence in her obvious and permanent absence. _It had ruined me. _

And now I felt that same hopelessness, that I was being left alone again, as I asked this woman a simple question. One I knew she had an answer to, she had to have an answer. I bit my lip hard, staring her down. Mycroft, on her part, was quiet. She appraised me, carefully, doing what her sister would do. She analyzed me, tried to find out what had brought this on. She knew what I was talking about, who I was referencing. _Her_. I don't think I will ever be able to say _her_ name again. Not now. Not after everything.

"Joan-"

"No," I cut her off with. And she looked at me, looked at me hard with a pitying expression on her face and I knew she was going to deny me this. She was going to lie to me. "_Please don't_," I practically begged, right there on the street, my vision blurring. "Mycroft Holmes, if there was ever a time in the world to be good to someone besides that blasted Detective Inspector, it's now. Help me. Please."

Another moment. She shook her head at me with something like real regret in her eyes. "Joan Watson, my sister is _dead_. Sher-'

"Don't you _dare_ say her name," I hissed. "You don't _deserve_ to say her name." I turned on my heel and stomped away, people in the street looking at me oddly. I walked back to my new flat, hot tears rolling down my face. There was the hopelessness again. I needed to set up another appointment with my therapist. This really was the worst thing that's happened since _she_ died. I was seeing things now. And it took a well placed refusal to go along with my fantasies to show me that. God, this was all so wrong. I was so broken.

There was a liquor store, right near my new flat. But I avoided it; my brother had fallen to drink after he had gotten divorced. I wasn't going to end up like him. Instead, I walked past my new flat and down a familiar street, one that caused me actual physical pain to walk down. The street _we_ used to live on. Baker Street. And I walked right up to our old flat, 221b Baker Street. Every footstep was like a knife to the heart as memories bombarded me at the sights I was greeted by. The old door-knocker, the spare key still on the top of the doorway, tucked into a corner. _She_ could always reach it better, but I tried hard this time, for _her_. I wondered if our old land-lord, Mr. Hudson, still lived here, if Angela still had her little Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant down the road.

I made my way inside the flat and stared up the narrow staircase that led to our main rooms. Seventeen stairs, she had told me once. _There are seventeen stairs leading up to the flat Joan_. A smile. _I bet you didn't know that. _And I hadn't. And I wanted the random facts back, the screaming at the telly on the weekends and the mess she made of the kitchen between the tea and the science projects. I missed her telling me I was wrong all the time, then running her fingers through my long, Afghan-sun bleached hair and telling me I was smarter than anyone she had ever met and _good_, she always said I was so good, her better half. I remember coming back from my tour in Afghanistan with a bad leg and shoulder and she had just told me everything about my entire life then invited me to run around London with her on some crazy, wild chase after a serial killer or something like that. I was a younger woman back then; now I can only remember the hazy images of her face as she smiled.

The door to our old flat was open when I get to the landing, as if it was waiting for someone. Maybe for me. Mr. Hudson wouldn't come up here, so it's not him. Hell, he gave me the main key, left the spare just in case. No one else could get in here without one. Except… well except. And my heart was in my throat again. And the tears were welling in my eyes. And I wanted to wipe them away or slow down so I wouldn't trip going in and make a fool of myself, but I couldn't control myself. And the hope was back and it turned into cold shock and I blanked out for a while after I walked in all the way.

She was sitting on her favorite chair, pale hands steepled under her bony chin. She was wearing a hooded jumper and denims, her trainers were worn and it was so out of character I couldn't breathe. And when she locked eyes with me, eyes that were filled with life and not blank with death, she gave a rare, apologetic look and said,

"Joan."

I couldn't breathe. I was shaking. My heart was pounding. Nothing made sense and _I wanted to cry._

And then everything just… stopped. It didn't matter how or why. Just that she was back, had never really gone. And it was _good_ and all was right in the world, because then I said,

"_Sherlock_."

Brokenly. Hopefully. Forgiving.

And she _smiled_.

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><p><strong>Ha! I had of course changed Mr. Hudson (Mrs. Hudson) to another name and 221b Baker street was like, 112Y Bykker Street (bykker being the German word for baker, I'm pretty sure). So. yeah. *shrugs* and Mycroft was Meryl. And Sherlock Shirley. I left John as Joan and changed the last name. And they were not the Holmes' but something else. I don't remember. <strong>

**SO! I hope my school still puts it in the magazine! I worked hard on this craps!**

**REVIEW! **


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